"Peter," a shrill voice cried from inside the house, "how often have I told you not to be gossiping on public affairs with strangers? Your tongue will cost you your head presently, as I have told you a score of times." "Near a hundred I should say, wife," the innkeeper replied. "I am speaking no treason, but am only explaining why our larder is empty, save some black bread, and some pig's flesh we bought an hour ago; besides, this youth is scarce likely to be one of the duke's spies." "There you are again," the woman cried angrily. "You want to leave me a widow, and your children fatherless, Peter Grantz. Was a woman ever tormented with such a man?" "I am not so sure that it is not the other way," the man grumbled in an undertone. "Why, wife," he went on, raising his voice, "who is there to say anything against us. Don't I go regularly to mass, and send our good priest a fine fish or the best cut off the joint two or three times a week? What can I do more? Anyone would think to hear you talk that I was a heretic." "I think you are more fool than heretic," his wife said angrily; "and that is the best hope for us. But come in, boy, and sit down; my husband will keep you gossiping at the door for the next hour if you would listen to him." "I shall not be sorry to sit down, mistress," Ned said entering the low roofed room. "I have walked from Axel since morning." "That is a good long walk truly;" the woman said. "Are you going on to Brussels? If so, your nearest way would have been by Antwerp." "I took the wrong road," Ned said; "and as they told me that there was but a mile or two difference between them, I thought I might as well keep on the one I had first taken." "You are from Holland, are you not, by your speech?" the woman asked. "Yes; I have come from Holland," Ned replied. "And is it true what they say, that the people there have thrown off the authority of the duke, and are going to venture themselves against all the strength of Spain?" "Some have risen and some have not," Ned replied. "None can say what will come of it." "You had best not say much about your coming from Holland," the woman said; "for they say that well nigh all from that province are heretics, and to be even suspected of being a heretic in Brabant is enough to cost anyone his life." "I am not one to talk," Ned replied; "but I thank you for your caution, mistress. I have been questioned already by Philip Von Aert, and he said he would see me again; but in truth I have no intention of further intruding on him."